Page 121 of Hiding in the Outfield

“Jackson, nice to meet you. Jed gave me a quick call and filled me in on your situation. I’m Chuck Wentworth, an agent at Wentworth Elite Athlete Agency.”

Shit. Does he, like, own this agency? He sounds way too young for that.

“I’m going to get straight to it. I’d like to represent you. I can take the train up to meet you tomorrow late morning. I checked your schedule, and it looks like that should work with your night game.”

My head is spinning. He wants to represent me? Does he know anything about me?

“I’d like to sit down to chat. Just to talk. I want to explain why I want to rep you, but I’d prefer to do that in person. Then the decision is all yours. Given what Jed has told me, I wanted to connect quickly.”

“Uh, okay, um…” Wow. Sound less coherent, Jackson. “I was actually planning on talking to my skipper tomorrow. About things…that Jed probably informed you of.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d prefer you wait until after we speak.”

“Okay. I can do that. Tomorrow morning works.”

“Great. I’ll text you the details of our meeting. Looking forward to meeting you.”

“You too.”

The call ends, and I stare blankly at my phone. What the hell just happened?

I guess I’ll find out tomorrow.

FORTY-FOUR

FRANKIE

Jackson walks into my house, kicks off his shoes, and hangs up his dripping wet coat. It’s torrential out there. He still hasn’t noticed me lounging on my couch. As soon as I found out they got rained out, I packed up my things to work from home for the afternoon. Any free minute we get, I want to take advantage of.

Pao Pao is next to me, currently battling it out with East on the gaming system. Shane is reading. My gaze lands on the cover, and my lips twitch. Finally convinced him to pick up the Puckboys series. He’s fully invested, though he’s still adamant baseball is way sexier for romance.

“Pebs says hi,” Jackson calls out.

I cock my head. Pebs? I assumed Jackson was returning from a workout. He doesn’t let a rain-out interrupt his routine. I know the guys had stayed at the clubhouse to get some training in before crashing back here, but I wasn’t surprised Jackson didn’t return with them. He takes it further than most. He lives and breathes baseball to the point that he is baseball.

Shane snaps straight. “Bro’scuse me? You saw JJ? And you didn’t bring me?” His jaw tightens and, oh wow, Shaney-babe has claws.

“Sorry, Shane. I needed to discuss some stuff with him one-on-one.”

I lean around my brother. “What kind of stuff?”

His eyes go wide. “Oh. Hey, babe. I didn’t see you there.”

“Mmmhmm.” I arch a brow. But my heart softens at the babe. At how naturally it slides off his tongue.

He squeezes the back of his neck and glances at my laptop. “Do you have a minute?”

I bring up my Outlook and put myself in a meeting for the next hour. “Yup,” I say, popping the ‘p’.

I follow him into my room. He heads to my dresser and pulls open the drawer that I cleared out for him. He drops his jeans, and I bite my lip. Damn, that ass. I am well aware of how much Jackson can squat, and it shows. He bends over to put on his joggers, and a purr rumbles from me. Frankie wants.

He chuckles. “Easy, tiger. Talk first, okay?”

I step forward, knock his hands out of the way, and take over unbuttoning his shirt. I need my hands on him. “Agreed. I very much want to know about this super-secret meeting with Jed.”

“It wasn’t a secret meeting,” he says totally unconvincingly.

I shoot him a look.